Thursday February 16, 2006(Audio) Homily by Fr. Robert AltierSixth Week in Ordinary Time

Reading (James 2:1-9)Gospel (St. Mark 8:27-33)

In the first
reading today, Saint James tells us that we are not to show any partiality as
we adhere to the faith of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. Now if we are going
to do that, he makes the example of a poor person and a rich person coming into
the assembly, and how the people tend to trip over themselves when somebody who
is wealthy comes in; yet when someone who is poor comes in, they ignore him. We
tend to do the exact same sorts of things in our lives. Sometimes we do it
based on whether the person is male or female. Sometimes we do it based on how
they are dressed. Oftentimes if a woman is pretty then they fall all over
themselves, but if she is not then they treat her poorly. We do it based on the
color of skin. We do it based on all kinds of different purposes. For what? We
are making judgments in our own minds based on external things that mean
nothing. Just because someone is rich or pretty or has a particular color of
skin does not make them a good person. Someone may be poor or a little less
pleasant to look at (or whatever the case may be) and that person may be the
holiest person you have ever met. If we make these distinctions in our minds
based on external things, Saint James tells us that we commit sin because we
are standing in judgment with regard to others based merely on things that are
external. This is wrong.

So he is telling
us, with regard to those who pray with us, that we have to practice charity. If
God loves this other person so much that He is going to give Himself to them
entirely in Holy Communion, that He has called that person to Himself so that
person can pray and love Him and He can love that person in return, and He has
called us to the exact same thing, who are we to say, “I love Jesus and Jesus
loves that person, but I don’t”? Then we do not love Jesus, because if Jesus
loves that other person so much, who are we to say that we do not? Why would we
fail to love somebody whom Jesus loves if we are going to say that we truly
love Him?

On top of that, as Saint James tells us, if we are going to follow His
commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves, then how can we fail in such
obvious ways? How can we be bigots, which is what it really comes down to? To
be prejudiced is bad enough, but if we are going to be making gross judgments
about someone merely based on the externals, it is bigotry. And gross bigotry
is a mortal sin. This is not something that we can have any part in. So we need
to overcome that and pray and ask Our Lord for the grace to be able to love
everybody the way that He does.

Otherwise, we are
going to be like Peter. When Jesus acknowledges Peter’s statement of the truth
– You are the Messiah – and then
He tells them what He needs to do – to suffer and die – Peter then suddenly
becomes upset about this, and judging once again on externals he says, This cannot happen to You. Jesus looks at
him and says, Get behind Me, Satan.
What are we going to do when we stand before the Lord, and He tells us that we
were bigots, that we judged people based on external appearance, that we did
not love the people He loved? We are going to have all of our reasons, just
like Peter did: “This can’t happen; this can’t be.” And He is going to say,
“Get behind me, Satan. You have no business being in heaven if that is the kind
of attitude you have.” What are we going to do in heaven when God allows in the
poor, the people with skin colors other than our own, people of the opposite
sex, people whom we thought were unacceptable in this world? When He opens the
kingdom of heaven to them, are we going to say, “Well, if they’re going in
there then I’m not”? No, if we are going to heaven, then we have to love them.
And if we are going to love them there, we had better love them here because
that is what will be required of us.

I think we all
should have figured out by now that oftentimes (certainly not always, but
oftentimes) the people that we trip all over ourselves to impress – the pretty
ones, the rich ones, the handsome ones, whatever it might be – they are the
people whose personalities are the worst. They are oftentimes the ones who are
so caught up in themselves that they are arrogant and snotty and they do not
think they need the Lord. Yet the others that we tend to ignore, they are the
ones who are filled with love. They are humble; they are kind; they have
wonderful personalities. Yet so often we ignore them just because of the
externals. One would think that by now we would have learned these sorts of
things, but unfortunately we keep falling all over ourselves in the wrong
direction.

We need to make
sure that we are looking at Christ and trying to see things as He sees them. We
are to do exactly as He commanded us to do, to love our neighbor as ourselves.
If we are going to trip all over ourselves with regard to anyone else, there is
a very simple solution: Just go home and look in the mirror. We are going to
see real quickly that we probably would not be tripping for our own selves
because we do not fit into the categories that we ourselves would be falling
all over for. So why are we making these kinds of judgments? Why are we making
these kinds of distinctions? Every human person is equal, and it does not
matter how rich they are, what kind of position they may have, what they look
like, or anything. In the eyes of God, we are created equal and we are all
called to love God and love neighbor in the same way. Therefore, we must put
bigotry and prejudice aside. We must look beyond the externals and recognize
the reality of who this person is as a child of God and love the individual as
Jesus loves them.

*This text was
transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing.